428 
FOREST AND . STREAM. 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
DBVOTRD TO FlBLD AND AQUATIC SPORTS, PRACTICAL NA^AX S"*°**' 
h « Mfl i 'rr . tukb tdb Protection ok Oams, fbibbrv atiokof Fobksw, 
^SS0N«&D WOMEN OF A HEALTHY INTBBBST 
IN out-Door KXCBBATION AND STUDY : 
PUBLISHED BY 
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NEW YORK, THURSDAY, JULY 4, 1878. 
To Correspondents. 
All sommunlcatlons whatever, Intended for publication, must be ac- 
companied with real name of tho writer as a guaranty of good faith 
and be addressed to the Forest and Stream Pdblishino Company. 
Names will not be published If objection be made. No anonymous com- 
munications will be regarded. 
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notes of their movements and transactions. 
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not be read with propriety In the home circle. 
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remitted to ns is lost. No pebson whatever Is authorized to collect 
money for us unless he can show authentic credentials from one of the 
undersigned. We have no Philadelphia agent, 
tr Trade supplied by American News Company. 
CHARLES HAIXOCK, Editor. 
T. C. BANKS, 8. H. TURRILL, Chicago, 
Business Manager. Western Manager. 
CALENDAR OF EVENTS FOR THE COMING 
WEEK. 
Friday, July 5. — Seawanhaka Y. C. Corinthian Cruise. Savannah, 
Y. C. Corinthian Race. Royal Henley Regatta, Eug. Cricket: Young 
America vs Manhattan, Turnpike Bridge. Trotting : Cincinnati, O. ; 
Detroit, Mich.; Bay City, Mich.; Dover. N. II.; Findlay, O. ; West Meri- 
den, Conn. ; Robinson, 111. ; TlskUwa, 111. ; Clyde, N. Y. ; Youngstown, 
O. ; Denver, Col. Running Meeting at Denver. 
Saturday, July C.— Beverly T. C. Regatta at Nahant. Cricket ; St. 
Timothy vs Merlon (2J) at Wlsaahlckon ; Belmont vs Manhattan, at 
West Philadelphia; Germantown vs Philadelphia, at Nlcetown. Trot- 
ting at Denver, Col. 
Tuesday, July 9. — Cricket : Staten Island (2d) vs Manhattan (2d) at 
Staten Island. Trotting : Bradford, Pa. ; Topeka, Kan.; Suffolk Park, 
Phlla.; Hartford, Conn; Columbus, O. 
Wednesday, June 10.— Creedmoor : “Appleton" and Winchester 
matches. Newburgh Bay Open Regatta. TrottlDg as above. 
PLAIN WORDS ABOUT SANTO DO- 
MINGO. 
S EVERAL persons who contemplatee migrating from the 
United States to Santo Domingo, have written to us 
seekiDg information in regard to that island. We have been 
at some pains to secure what we believe to be most trust- 
worthy and in every way reliable information, which we shall 
give as succinctly as possible to our readers. It may be pre- 
mised that the views here presented are thoee of a gentleman, 
at present residing in Santo Domingo, whose general infor- 
mation, extensive travel, intelligent observation and experi- 
ence as a resident in dillercnt parts of the world, attach to his 
opinions an exceptional value. 
The climate, fertility of soil and natural resources of Santo 
DomiDgo have received a very large share of extravagant and 
undeserved praise. Especially may this be remarked of tho 
8anto Domingo Report, compiled and issued by the United 
States Government at the time of the Santo Domingo Annexa- 
tion period of Grant’s administration. In this, apart from the 
roseate hues with which a tropical land is always colored in the 
eyes of visitors from colder climates, which we may reasonably 
believe to have influenced the United States Commissioners 
in their examination of the Island, much of the testimony 
of the residents was a distortion of the truth, given un cr in- 
timidation ; and, further, much testimony of a nature adverse 
to annexation was withheld by persons who feared to te t e 
truth, and who would not give false views. Tho simple ac 
is, that the island of Santo Domingo is no more fertile than 
scores of other islands in the Atlantic and many localities in 
Central and South America. Any one who expects to sit idle 
aud see the land yield a fortune will bo most sadly disap- 
pointed. Landed proprietors refuse, save in rare instances, to 
sell their estates, but are perfectly willing to lease them for a 
term of years, well satisfied to see their neglected acres im- 
proved by foreign energy and capital. Beyond so serving as 
an instrument for the aggrandizement of Dominican indo- 
lence and shiftlessness, the successful foreigner is regarded 
with envious displeasure, which, growing apace with his con- 
tinued fortune, harasses his peace, and eventually deatroys 
his prosperity. To these untoward circumstances we must 
not forget to add the difference ef habits and customs between 
the native and foreigner, the ignorance of the latter in the 
ways of the country, and the thousand and one difficulties 
never before dreamed of, but every where encountered by a 
settler in a tropical country, and which are well-nigh insu- 
perable obstacles in the path to success. Theorizing aside, 
the most convincing argument is this : Of all the commercial 
and agricultural enterprises engaged in by foreigners on the 
island of Santo Domingo during the last five years, with a 
single exception, none have yielded any satisfactory or ade- 
quate returns for the expenditure of time and money. The 
single exception was that of two Cubans, who, with unlimit- 
ed capital, have successfully engaged in sugar raising. 
When, in addition to what we may term the private and per- 
sonal difficulties everywhere surrounding the path of the im- 
migrant, we reflect that the country is subject to continued 
and repeated insurrections, and that in these uprisings the 
foreigner may see his house and property burned about his 
head, and be himself subject to draft to quell the insurrec- 
tionists, the outlook is anything but inviting. If, with these 
facts before him, any one of our correspondents elects to leave 
the jurisdiction of the Stars and Stripes for that of Santo Do- 
mingo, he will probably meet with as much good fortune as 
he deserves, and no more. 
THE PLAINSMAN. 
i T is wonderful how persistent are false ideas. A good 
many honest people would rather throw overboard their 
entire creed, every article of it, than disbelieve that French- 
men eat anything else than frogs, or Russians tallow. Now, 
as impossible a picture as we know of, false in every way, is 
the one the East has painted for itself of the Western man— 
the man of the plains. Many a New Yorker cannot divide 
the man from his clothes. Buffalo Bill may be a spectacle in 
his fringed buckskin shirt and ornamented leggins, but take 
Bill and put him in store clothes, and he is just like anybody 
else. The broad felt sombrero the plainsman don’t like to 
put aside — and here he shows his wisdom. We stand to it, 
in hot weather the big felt hat is the best protection for the 
head. But it is not the outer man we want to talk about. 
Now, we of this paper have as good an opportunity as any 
one else of judging of the manner, of the talk of some of 
the most noted hunters, trappers and plainsmen of the far 
West. We declare them to be the most quiet and gentlemanly 
men we know of, and with the least brag and bluster about 
them. Something more, they are a peculiarly sober and tem- 
perate sort of men. Intoxication is rare with them, and they 
are by no means as much addicted to tobacco as are Eastern 
men. Your Western rowdy, the associate of the outcasts, 
the worst riff-raff of the plains, certainly exists, but in very 
much diminished numbers. Take some vile creature in our 
over-vaunted East and transplant him to the West, and the 
bad that was in him here comes out neither better nor worse 
in Indian Territory than in New York State. It is time that 
we should better understand the frank, the hearty, honest, and 
whole-souled manners of the plainsmen. A free, open-air 
life has given most of them a superb physique. We are 
shrunken up and pigmy when we stand alongside of these 
men. Somehow— and no one knows how it comes— these men 
are mostly imbued with a certain simplicity and straightfor- 
wardness of manner which has a peculiar charm of its own. 
They say what they mean without guile, and their word is 
their bond. It is a poetic type in form, shape and word, and is 
imbued with wonderful shrewdness. How long it may last no 
one can say. As he exists, as we have seen him, we are bound 
to express our admiration of the true plainsman, who is as 
honest, hospitable and courteous as he is brave and reliable. 
Thb Fourth of July.— This week's Forest and Stbeasi 
and Rod and Gun is of twenty-eight pages. This issue we 
are forced to send out on Wednesday, as mailing facilities are 
not to be had on the Fourth of July (Thursday), our usual 
day of publication. The Fourth ! We shall hie to some far 
distant island on that day, where the small boy with his 
cracker is unknown. We want holidays— more of them in 
this country. It is true that on the 5th there will be no end 
of burnt fiDgers to record ; still wo hope all our readers who 
want to explode things will have a good time of it, and be as 
noisy as the character of the day justifies. Be (bang!) free 
(whizz ! !) and be happy (boom III) 
bedded in a human skull. It was probably a sculpin, though 
it is not so stated, and the fisherman a skulking sculler, who 
in due time, we presume, handed it over to the scullion. But 
our point is this : That this item should have gone the rounds 
from California to Pennsylvania simply demonstrates that the 
average newspaper paragrapher knows very little of natural 
history It is nothing at all unusual for fish to inhabit skulls— 
in fact, there is a well recognized proclivity among the inhabit- 
ants of the saline deep to sequester themselves in the cavern- 
ous recesses beneath the scalphoid and semi-lunars. This was 
known as long ago as the time of Milton, who has embodied 
the belief in his verse as follows : 
*■ Fish that, with their shining scales, 
Glide under the green waves In sculls that oft 
Bank the mid sea." 
We wonder that, while the poet was about it, ho did not 
speculate upon the eternal fitness of things so strikingly illus- 
trated in this curious finny instinct, and, reasoning from the 
proverbial connection between fish and skulls, or brains which 
are supposed to be in skulls 
The Irate Editor as a Naturalist.— A suggestive but 
hitherto unappreciated field of investigation for tho student 
of natural history is found in the leaded brevier of the wrathy 
Western editor. If the subject of the editorial be a personal 
one, the reader will in all probability find references to nu- 
merous lower and unsavory varieties of the animal kingdom, 
some of which are not down in the books; and, if the reader 
be a naturalist, he may, with profit to himself and science, de- 
vote himself to a careful study of certain of these creatures. 
For instance, when the editor of the Idaho Avalanche calls 
another editor a “ Piratical Skunk ” the student may well ask, 
“ What is a piratical skunk ? How does it differ from the 
ordinary skunk of science, fact and fiction ?’’ A. further peru- 
sal of the article in question will cast some light upon the 
characteristics of what we may designate the var. piraticus of 
the Mephitis Americana. We learn among other thiugs that 
this animal-peculiar, let us hope, to Idaho-is inclined to be 
“ bigoted,” “ prejudiced,” “ by nature and practice a stranger 
to those better impulses that are supposed to actuate the bet- 
ter class’’— of skunks, and, moreover, upon the presumed theory 
that each part of the creation has its appointed purpose, this 
interesting specimen “ fulfills his mission in life by revelling in 
slime and putrescence, and berating all who will not descend 
to that unholy and debased level which he occupies. That's 
what’s the matter with — " This is all here given of what we 
may term the diagnosis of the beast ; but if the student be en- 
thusiastic he will not stop here ; nothing but a personal ob- 
servation of its habits, together with a stuffed specimen, 
should satisfy his thirst for knowledge. Let him beware, 
however, of falling into the error of the good-hearted person 
who attempted to soothe an indignant shyster whom an odi&r 
had called “a Texas tarantula” by assuring hun that, al- 
though he was a tarantula, he was nothiug more than a per- 
fectly harmless spider. We published in Forest and Stream, 
a year ago, valuable papers showing that the bite of the Texas 
tarantula is poisonous and dangerous. In his investigations, 
rather let the student regard only the strictest scientific verity* 
without reference to the personal feelings of the specimens 
under examination. 
GAME PROTECTION. 
MEETINGS OF STATE ASSOCIATIONS 
FOR 1878. 
Fisa and Skulls. — A paragraph has been going the rounds 
of the papers about a fish recently caught at San Francisco em- 
Tonneesee State Sportsmen’s Association, Nashville, Deo. 2 . 
Sect’y., Clark Pritchett, Nashville, Tenn. 
Wisconsin State Sportsmen’s Association. 
Massachusetts State Sportsmen’s Association, at call of President 
Missouri State Sportsmen’s Association. 
Maine.— Kcnnebunk sportsmen have organized the Kenne- 
bunk Fish and Game Protective Association, with the follow- 
ing officers: Joseph 8. Saudus, Pres.; Allen G. Littlefield, 
Vice-Pres.; George C. Lord, Sec.; W. H. Cloudman, Treas.; 
Z. M. Cushman, E. M. Dutch, C. W. Stoney. Executive 
Committee. The club has an ample field of work, and as it 
is composed of influential citizens promises to accomplish de- 
sirable ends. 
Connecticut. — The following very excellent act.was passed 
at the last session of the Connecticut Legislature under the 
title “ An Act in addition to an Act for the Preservation of 
Game — 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General 
Assembly convened : 
Section 1. No person shall shoot, kill, attempt to shoot, or at- 
tempt to kill, any wild duck, goose, or brant, in, on, or over the 
waters, bays, channels, islands, marshes, mudflats, pondboles, or 
any part of tho bed of tho Housatonic river below or south of tho 
bridge across said river known as Washington bridge, and above 
or north of the beach on which tho house of George Smith stands, 
and a lino from tho middle of tho west end of said beach to the 
middle of the mouth (south side) of Nock bridge creek. 
Sec. 2. Every person who shall violate the provisions of the 
preceding section of this act shall bo punished by a lino of not less 
than seven dollars nor exceeding thirty dollars, or by imprison- 
ment in a common jail for a term not exceeding thirty days, or by 
such line and imprisonment both ; and all complaints for viola- 
tions of this act may be made by any proper officer In either of the 
towns of Milford or Stratford, and may be heard and determined 
by any Justice of tho peace residing in either of said towns of Mil- 
ford or Stratford. 
Sec. 3. This act shall take effect from Its passage. 
Tho mouth of the Housatonic River, to which this act refers, 
has been from time immemorial a favorite feeding ground for 
